147 - Cleansing the Conscience [B]

Hebrews Lesson 147  February 12, 2009

^NKJ Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

We're in Hebrews 9 and I just want to pick up the context a little bit starting in verse 12. In verse 12 we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,

^NKJ Hebrews 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Now there are a lot of different ideas here. I want to focus on the main stream of thought here to make sure we understand what the writer is saying. In verse 11 he said:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:11 But Christ came as High Priest…

Then skip the rest of it. Skip down to verse 12.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

That's his main idea – entering the most holy place once for all. He is emphasizing the finality and the completion of the work of salvation by Christ's sacrifice, by His atonement on the cross. Everything else simply feeds into that idea. 

The other things that feed into that idea give us additional information have to do with the fact that there is a heavenly tabernacle, not just the earthly tabernacle. The heavenly tabernacle has to do with the dwelling place of God, the throne room of God. That is where Christ appears after His ascension. 

I pointed out that when He came or when He entered into human history (It should be understood as a temporal participle there) as a High Priest of the good things to come, "the good things to come" has to be understood as a phrase, as a stock phrase that relates to what Christ was going to do on the cross. So He comes into history with the virgin conception and the virgin birth. But, the focal point here is when He goes to the cross. That's when He performs His high priestly work, offering Himself as a sacrifice. Then it is after that that He enters the most holy place in heaven. That would be at the ascension. 

So there's this comparison and contrast between the temporary limited ritual sacrifice performed by the Aaronic high priest. It happened once a year on the Day of Atonement. It was annual. It was on the basis of the blood of animals, the death of animals, and it didn't secure anything more than a ritual cleansing that got the nation through until the next year on the Day of Atonement. 

In contrast to that, Jesus' death is once, for all. His death has value that has infinite value because of who He is in hypostatic union with God the Son. The sacrifices only had limited value, but they did have a value. There was a physical cleansing or ritual sanctification setting apart for the purifying of the flesh. But Christ's sacrifice goes deeper (verse 14) that it cleanses our conscience: not the external body; not just physical ritual cleansing, but cleansing the conscience. That is the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 

This is an a fortiori argument that is set up here that you go from the lesser to the greater. If the lesser is true, how much more true is the greater? The greater of course is the sacrifice, the death of the Second Person of the Trinity in hypostatic union with true humanity on the cross. Because Christ is greater and empowered by the Holy Spirit, indicated by the phrase eternal Spirit, then His death has greater value. 

Now as we look at this there are some things we need to look at in a little more depth in terms of what verse 14 states. First of all we have the word "offer" which is the Greek word prosphero, which means to bring something to, to lead something to; that you lead an animal to the altar for sacrifice or to offer.  You could offer yourself. Here it simply indicates that God the Son through the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is empowering and energizing His spiritual life. 

That is the same pattern that we've seen before that the spiritual life of Jesus Christ in His humanity is the pattern, the model for our spiritual life. The pattern or model for the spiritual life of the Church Age believer is not the Mosaic Law.  It is the spiritual life of the Lord Jesus Christ. We studied this extensively when we looked at passages back in the second chapter and the third chapter that Christ was made perfect through the things that He suffered.  If He encountered and handled the testing, the temptation, the suffering that He went through in His humanity by relying on His deity, then that wouldn't be very difficult at all. What kind of a test is it for God to be God and not to sin? So Jesus could not have relied upon His divine attributes, His deity at all in order to handle the suffering the testing, and the adversity that He went through in life. He had to handle it through the same limited finite human resources that we all have. That boils down to the same two - the Spirit of God and the Word of God. We see that example especially when He is in the wilderness (Luke 4). The Spirit leads Him into the wilderness where He is tested by Satan three times, and in each of those tests He responds by quoting the Word of God correctly. 

By the second test Satan is using the Word to try to trip Him up and Satan is misquoting and misinterpreting the Word and Jesus is straightening him out.  But He uses the Word of God in conjunction with the Spirit of God in order to handle that testing. Now He is in the same state that Adam was in in the garden. That's where the comparison should be. Adam, the first Adam, is created perfect – no sin nature. He's put in a testing situation where He can in his humanity disobey God. Jesus is created as true humanity in order to go through the same kinds of tests. But He is going to pass the test. He is going to remain obedient because He's relying upon the Spirit of God and the Word of God and therefore He is able to live a life of impeccability.

Now that life of impeccability is brought out in the next word that we have here which is the Greek word amomos. The a or the alpha at the beginning is like our English prefix un. It's a negative and it means without blemish. This is language that is usually used with sacrifices. It came mean unblemished or spotless. So we have the same word used for example in I Peter 1:18-19. It talks about the fact that we were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold from our empty manner of life, but with the precious blood as of a lamb without spot or blemish. So this is using the language as applied to sacrifices. 

Then this is taken to another level in Colossians 1:22 that He has now reconciled you (That is every believer) in His fleshly body through death in order to present you before Him holy and blameless. Here we see the word blameless used in conjunction with "holy" which here picks up the additional nuance of "without sin." We are presented as it were as if that sin is not held against us. We have the imputed righteousness of Christ and so we're declared righteous and holy and above reproach. That is how we are presented in terms of our position in Christ.

We go back to Hebrews 9:14. There's another word that's added here. That is the word cleanse. So we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ,

That is the death of Christ.  That phrase "blood of Christ" always referring to His spiritual, substitutionary work on the cross.

who through the eternal Spirit

That indicates the means that enable Him to stay on the cross and handle the adversity, the suffering that He faced there in terms of handling our sin when He who knew no sin was made sin for us.

offered Himself without spot to God,

Because He is impeccable, without sin. 

cleanse

That's your idea of a relative clause in the middle adds more information.

your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Now the word there is the verb katharizo, and katharizo is the word that we find in I John 1:9.

^NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It's a word that's used, a Greek word that's used in the Septuagint of the Old Testament to translate the words that we read about clean animals and unclean animals and being cleansed when you wash your hands in the laver and the need to be cleansed through the sin offerings and the trespass offerings. It's a word that refers to ceremonial purification in the ritual of the Old Testament, and it is a word that is used to describe what happens when the believer's sin has been dealt with when he has been cleansed and purified by virtue of his faith in Christ when he has received the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

So it is the death of Christ that cleanses our conscience from the guilt of sin. Every person is guilty of sin. When I use the term "guilt of sin, I'm not talking about your personal guilt feelings over whatever it is that you've done that you think offend God and shock God and shock everybody else. That's not what the text is talking about when it talks about guilt. We are talking about the legal declaration of human guilt because of Adam's sin. When Adam disobeyed God, Adam and all of his descendents are declared guilty before God's Supreme Court. They are legally guilty. 

That legal guilt has to be dealt with objectively and subjectively. What I mean by objectively is in relation to God. That's the Godward aspect of atonement. In atonement you have a payment price, a penalty that's paid. When Adam sinned a penalty was assessed judicially by God. That means that Adam instantly died spiritually and because that spiritual death that occurred to Adam everyone that's born from him is also born spiritually dead. But Adam's sin is that which condemns the human race. That's made clear in passages like Romans 5 as well. Adam's sin is the cause of our guilt. We are declared guilty and we're under condemnation. God's justice has to be satisfied. It demands that the penalty be paid. So redemption focuses on the payment of that penalty by a substitute. That's one aspect of atonement. 

Another aspect of atonement deals with reconciliation that because that is paid for then there can be reconciliation between two parties who are at enmity with one another. 

Then the third aspect is propitiation that God's justice and righteousness have been satisfied by the payment of that penalty. Those three ideas redemption, propitiation and reconciliation are all linked together. That word that's used for atonement in the Old Testament incorporates all of those things. Now those are all directed toward God so God is pleased with the sacrifice in Christ. So the text says that all are redeemed God, all are reconciled and God is propitiated toward all men. But that doesn't change the individual qualities of the spiritually dead person. They can only be saved by having their nature changed. They have to have righteous, the kind of righteousness that God can accept. They have to have a new life because they're spiritually dead, experientially. And they have to have eternal life. So those are only applied to them once an individual puts their faith alone in Christ alone. When each of us believed in Jesus at that instant God the Father assigns to us (The term is imputation.) the perfect righteous of Christ. It never has anything to do with who we are, what we've done, or what we haven't done. It has to do with the fact that Christ's perfect righteous is put on us like a covering so that the sin that we have and will have is not an issue because what God looks at now is the righteous that has been credited to us by Jesus Christ. 

He has an unlimited bank account and those assets are all assigned to us and we're all in greater debt than the United States.  We're worse off than any nation in history. We are worse than bankrupt. I don't know what that would be; but we're worse than bankrupt. That certificate of indebtedness (you know I think… I read an article the other day.  It's more like $8 trillion because the FDIC has ponied up a lot of money and two or three other government organizations have put up a lot of money. We had a trillion back in September and then another trillion. We can't count that high) of $100 gazillion has been laid against us was nailed to the cross; so that's not an issue anymore. That's the objective side.  But when we trust in Christ, then it is subjectively applied to us and our conscience is cleansed. So when you understand what happens at the cross, there's no place for guilt. There's no place for running around saying, "I've got to do something to please God." You have to really understand this in connection to the ritual of the Old Testament because the whole phrase reads that the blood of Christ will cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 

Now what are the dead works in context? The dead works here aren't just going out and doing human good. The dead works here aren't just going out and being involved in religion as opposed to Christianity. The dead works here in context are the ritual observances under the Mosaic Law – the sacrifices and offerings that were all prescribed by the Mosaic Law. 

What happened on the Day of Atonement? On the Day of Atonement the High Priest goes in and he sacrifices a sin offering. He sacrifices the burnt offering. He's going to take the blood in and he's going to light the incense. He's going to put the blood Ark of the Covenant and splatter it in front of the Ark of the Covenant. Then he's going to go out; and he's going to select the two goats. He will identify the sins of the nation with each goat - kill one goat and send the other goat into the wilderness (the scapegoat). That only lasted for a year. Then he's got to do it again next year. Then he's go to do it again the next year. He's got to do it the next year and the next year. Their conscience is never really cleansed. Nothing is really resolved. It's all ritual. The point that he's making is the death of Christ cleanses not the flesh, but cleanses the conscience from dead works so these rituals are no longer necessary because of the completed work of Christ. 

Now there's a purpose for this. When you were saved (when you trusted in Christ as your Savior), you didn't have to understand this to be saved. You may have come to understand it later and maybe you didn't like it, but the reason that we were saved wasn't just so we could go to heaven and God could be happy that we are there. A lot of people think that. 

"God just wants me in heaven. Isn't it great? I am such a nice person." 

No that's not why He saved us. We're cleansed to serve. That's an infinitive of purpose there. We are cleansed to serve the living God. That's our purpose – to serve Him. Now the word that's used here is the word latreuo, which is one of two words usually used for worship. Proskuneo, which has to do with bending the knee is more the idea of worship in terms of honoring God. It's a different word. Latreuo indicates service of God, serving Him as the Lord. 

So there are several points that we can cover to summarize the Doctrine of Serving the Lord. This is one way in which we worship - six points on serving the Lord.

1. First of all before a person can serve or worship God, they must be justified, forgiven and regenerated. These are all subjective application of the cross terms. That means you have to be a believer before you can worship God. You can't serve God by going off to India or Africa or China or going down and working in a soup kitchen or at the Star of Hope Mission or working on a cancer ward or whatever it is; you can't do any of those things as a way of serving God if you're an unbeliever. It's not acceptable worship. On Sunday morning we've taught the last couple of Sundays in Revelation about worship must be acceptable worship. There are certain protocols that God lays out in both the Old Testament and New Testament for worship. You can't just come to worship God on your own terms and do it the way you think and the criteria isn't how it makes you feel. If you feel closer to God and the music makes you sway and all the things that are typical today of people's thinking about worship is irrelevant. The first thing that has to happen is you have to be properly related to God in terms of the judicial cleansing of Adam's original sin and guilt. That only comes when we put our faith alone in Christ alone. So before we can serve or worship God we have to be justified, forgiven (That's positional forgiveness) and regenerated. 
2. Now what are the ways in which the Bible says we serve and worship the Lord? This is the second point. We serve God through prayer and corporate worship. 

^NKJ Luke 2:37 and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple,

Notice: she is at the proper place for worship, corporate worship took place in Israel. 

but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

So the fasting was part of the ritual in Israel. But this is related to her personal spiritual life and prayer. We serve God through prayer and worship.

3. We serve God in terms of our spiritual growth and use of our spiritual gifts. Now there is a related word (cognate, another form of latreuo). Latreuo is a verb and in Romans 12:1 we have the noun form. In Romans 12:1 we read: 

^NKJ Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

That's that word for service there is the cognate of the verb latreuo. It has to do with serving God. How do we serve God? We serve God through the entirety of our lives. So what Paul does at the end of all his doctrinal exposition in the first 11 chapters of Romans, he comes to this conclusion.  That's the point of the "therefore" in 12:1. "Therefore I beseech you or I beg of you or I challenge you." He's pleading with them by the mercies of God: because you now understand God's grace in action, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice." The reason he used "bodies" is because it's the totality of life. It's not just a platonic spiritual dimension. It is everything that we do that comes under this umbrella. We present our bodies a living sacrifice so that our lives are to serve God. That's the idea of sacrifice there, not that it's always like it's going to feel like we're giving something up or that idea. But that it has been dedicated to God. We're going to do what God would have us to do as opposed to what we would want to do. 

So we present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is our reasonable form of worship.

Some could translate it that way. So that is individual worship. So we serve God in terms of our own personal spiritual growth - reading the Word, memorizing the Word, personal prayer, all of that, listening to Bible class, coming to church, studying the Word – all of that – applying it - relates to our spiritual growth making sure that we are in fellowship walking by the Spirit, and the Spirit of God uses what we learn and produces spiritual growth. Paul said in Acts 27:23: 

^NKJ Acts 27:23 "For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve,

Several times Paul says it that way that God is the one to whom he belongs. He told the Corinthians: 

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

We are to serve Him because He redeemed us. That's the idea that he has here – the angel of the God to whom I belong. We go from being bondservants or slaves to the sin nature to being bond servants to God, Romans 6. So we are to serve Him. 

4. We have to recognize that just as there are only two options in terms of thinking (either divine viewpoint or human viewpoint): God's knowledge and truth or Satan's knowledge and truth. We're either serving God or serving Satan. Those are the only options. Life is really black and white. Now the world out there wants to ridicule us. "Those Christians out there just want to make everything good or bad, righteous or unrighteous.  Everything's either right or wrong. They just think in terms of black and white. How Neanderthal! How antediluvian!" But that is what the Scriptures teach – that we're either walking by the Spirit or we're walking by the flesh. We're either thinking God's thoughts or we're thinking according to human viewpoint. And, we're either serving God or we're serving ourselves (the sin nature which is tantamount to operating in Satan's world). So we're ultimately serving Him. Romans 1:25 states it this way:

^NKJ Romans 1:25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

So these are the options. We're going to serve the Creator or we're going to serve the creature.

5. Our service must be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Philippians 3:3:

^NKJ Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,

This is a spiritual circumcision not a physical circumcision. The picture of circumcision there is the removal, the cutting away of the bondage of the sin nature. Most translations will translate it "in the Spirit" but it's an instrumental dative and it should be translated "we worship God by means of the Spirit." This is the same thing we saw in John 4 when Jesus is talking to the woman at the well. He said that:

^NKJ John 4:24 "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Most translations will translate it with just a simple English preposition "in" as I pointed out on Sunday morning; but it's a Greek preposition en plus the dative form of the noun. There's only one other place in John where John uses the preposition "en" with the dative of pneuma – only one other place in John where he used en plus the dative of aletheia for truth. In both places the instrumental idea reigns. The reason I emphasize that is because there are a certain number of people who want to leave this as what I think is a fuzzy concept – we're in the Spirit. What does that mean? That's kind of quasi-mystical that I just get in a state where I'm enveloped by the Spirit and I'm in the Spirit. Well, what does that mean? And I don't think that's very clear. I think the idea of instrumentality of worshipping by means of the Spirit or by means of the truth of God's Word gives us a much better handle on what this means that in order to worship God there is an intermediary means that enables us to do that and that is the standard of truth and God the Holy Spirit who indwells and fills us. So just as Jesus said in John 4, Paul says, "We worship God by means of the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh."

6. Our present service prepares us for our future service. We don't like the idea that God wants you to serve Him in various ways in this life. Then you're going to have a problem because when we get to heaven we're going to serve Him day and night in His Temple. Revelation 7:15. Revelation 22:3 says:

^NKJ Revelation 22:3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.

  That's what we'll be doing. His servants will serve Him.

Back to Hebrews 9:15

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason

For what reason? Well, contextually that's what is covered in verse 14. 

^NKJ Hebrews 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason

For that reason – because Christ's death has such infinite value that He has done everything for us. He has provided everything for us. For that reason, because of the value of His death on the cross, He is the mediator of the New Covenant. Now that word mediator is the idea that He is the one who stands between God and man. He is the one who provides the link so that man can have a relationship with God. And this is based on the New Covenant and the sacrifice for the New Covenant is what He performed on the cross when He initiated the Lord's Table and said, "This is the New Covenant of My blood." 

So for this reason (because of the value of His death)…

He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Now this is a nasty little piece of Greek grammar in this verse and very difficult to pull apart and I'm not sure how technical I want to get with this. But the main idea that we have here is that this first word that we have in the Greek is translated "so that". It indicates purpose. ut the clause where we have actually a plural noun and a verb, a subject and a verb, doesn't come up until we get to the last part of the verse. I think it reads better and communicates better if we translate it "He is the mediator of the new covenant so that (and then skip down to the end) those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant."

So by restructuring the sentence it becomes clear that the meaning of the New Covenant is related to receiving the promise of the eternal inheritance. So as Church Age believers receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. The participle there has a sort of causal or explanatory force since the redemption of the transgression under first covenant.

So it emphasizes that because of that, on the basis of the fact that these transgressions are dealt with, then those who are called can receive the eternal inheritance. 

Now when we look at this passage on the New Covenant it brings to mind two passages we have look at already in Hebrews. Hebrews 7:22 stated:

^NKJ Hebrews 7:22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

That is the New Covenant there. Jesus becomes the guarantee of a new covenant. 

^NKJ Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

That it ties mediator and new covenant together. This is just prior to the introduction to the quote from Jeremiah 31. 

Now just ignore the rest of it. Notice the connection between the covenant and promises. Now when we look back at our verse (verse 15) I want you to notice in the last section there: 

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

I want to connect three things here: the covenant, the promise and inheritance. Those three things go together. We see them linked together in numerous passages that the promises are guaranteed by a covenant and they have a future orientation in terms of inheritance. Now we're going to have to look at inheritance again to be reminded of a few things. But go back to Hebrews 1. 

Corrected translation:

So that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, a death having come about for the redemption of the transgressions of the first covenant. 

That would be the Mosaic Covenant. 

Now, who are the called? Who are the called? People get all wrapped around the axel on this on a number of different things especially when the issue is 5-point Calvinism and election and predestination. The term "called" is just the simple word kaleo that is used for example in Matthew 20. It's the parable of the wedding feast and the invitations go out to the highways and byways to invite all those who will to come to the wedding feast. One guy shows up and he doesn't have on the right clothes, which indicates that he doesn't have the right kind of righteousness. He is removed. And he is removed because of his failure to have the right kind of clothes and that's in – my memory is failing tonight. I thought that was in Matthew 20, but it's not. I'm not going to look at it. Anyway, in the process of explaining that parable, Jesus says, "Many are called but few are chosen." The parable is Matthew 22:14. After removing the guy who shows up Jesus says:

^NKJ Matthew 22:14 "For many are called, but few are chosen."

The word "called" there is a broader term than the word for elect. They're not identical. The called are all of those who receive the invitation. That's related to what theologians would call the external call of salvation, the offer of salvation to come and drink freely of the water of eternal life. So there are many that are called, many who hear the gospel, many who are told about Jesus and understand the gospel; but they don't respond. The only ones that respond, the chosen ones, are the ones who have the right kind of clothes. They get the right kind of clothes because the instant they put their faith alone in Christ alone, God imputes to them the perfect righteous of Jesus Christ. That's the right kind of clothes. Because they're clothed in His righteous, then they can come to the wedding feast. But there are other passages that emphasize other aspects of this. Another passage that emphasizes the invitation, the presentation of the gospel, 2 Thessalonians 2:14:

^NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:14 to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So calling doesn't just sort of happen by God zapping someone. It's that they hear the gospel. It's that gospel invitation. In some passages it has that broad sense of that invitation to trust in Jesus Christ as Savior, but in other passages it has a narrower meaning. For example, Romans 8:28.

^NKJ Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Then he goes on in verse 29 to define the calling as the whole process there that those who got called these are justified, those who got justified eventually these are the ones He glorifies

^NKJ Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

So "the called" there is used as a synonym for the group that has responded to the external call. So you have the word used on the one hand to refer those who are called are those who are invited to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Then you have the word used in a narrower sense to refer to those who have believed in Jesus as their Savior. That's how this word is used here in Hebrews 9:15.

So that those who are called – that is, those who are saved. You can substitute and paraphrase it that way. Those who are called – not everybody that's invited according to 2 Thessalonians 2:14 and Matthew 22:13 – that would be a broader audience. "Those who are called" here simply stands for those who have responded to that invitation that they may receive the promise of that eternal inheritance. 

That inheritance is really two-fold, as we have studied in the past that, there is an inheritance that is common to all believers. There is an inheritance that is unique to some. In the Old Testament if you had numerous sons, each would receive an inheritance but the eldest son, the first born, would receive a double portion. So it's not that everybody gets the same thing and everybody is going to look the same in heaven. God is not a Marxist-Leninist. God is going to reward some believers for obedience and there are some believers who are going to lose reward which comparable to inheritance. 

So I want to just review this. Turn to Hebrews 1, and we've touched on this several times in Hebrews—one of the major underlying doctrines in the whole letter to the Hebrews because they're being challenged not to give up, not to fade in the stretch, not to fail in their spiritual lives and go back to Judaism because what they will put at risk is their future inheritance. 

So I want to look at 2 passages in relation to this in Hebrews and then we'll look at the doctrine, which will take us into next time. In the first two verses of chapter 1

^NKJ Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,

^NKJ Hebrews 1:2 has in these last days spoken to us

Completed, fulfilled action of revelation there. 

by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

So if Jesus Christ is the heir who inherits all things by virtue of who He is and what He did in His humanity. That is an earned inheritance. Now we become joint heirs with Him by virtue of our obedience. 

Now turn over to Hebrews 6. In Hebrews 6:12 - this is following the passage that everybody wants to go to to show you can lose your salvation. In Hebrews 6 we have the warning that leads into, that's central to the warning passage and leads into this or is central to it rather. 

^NKJ Hebrews 6:11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope

Now that is as strongly a worded a works type of terminology as you could get. Paul isn't saying, "Well, you got saved so that's it." We have it all objectively. Christ has provided everything for us. But what he is saying here is that we have to grow spiritually. We are not saved to sit. We are saved to serve. So we have to grow. 

I think I said Paul. It's not Paul. The writer of Hebrews says, 

until the end,

In other words, until the end of your life, phase 2. 

^NKJ Hebrews 6:12 that you do not become sluggish,

And fade in the stretch like these other believers who will be losers at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit

What? 

the promises

There we have that connection between promises and inheritance again. They're saved but unless they do something, unless they're consistent (and this is the true biblical doctrine of Perseverance), unless they hang in there and continue to grow; then they will jeopardize their inheritance in the future. So this is one of those doctrines that's crucial to understand because it relates to our motivation in the Church Age. 

The word for inheritance, the noun, is kleronomos. It has the idea of one who inherits or an heir. In our society an heir receives the property when somebody dies. But in the Old Testament background to this somebody could be an heir of something and have a current possession. So the core meaning of inheritance is not the idea of somebody dying and having property transferred. But the core meaning is possession or property, having something as your possession. That's the verb. Kleronomos is the noun. This is the related verb, kleronomeo meaning to possess or receive something as one's possession.  Now these two words are used in several different ways. 

1. They are used to refer to a birthright which someone gains by virtue of their sonship – by virtue of their relationship to the Father. That is the way we're most used to thinking about an inheritance, as a birthright. Galatians 4:30 and Hebrews 1:4.
2. It's also used to describe property that is received as a gift in contrast to a reward. So you may receive property because you've done something.  But it's used in Hebrews 1:14 and 6:12 as property that is received as a gift, as a grace gift like salvation. 
3. It's used also to refer to property that's received on the condition of obedience to certain conditions. The point I'm making is that we have an inheritance that's related to property that's given; and we have inheritance used in relation to things that are ours based on some condition - the condition of obedience, perseverance, growing spiritually. It's used in two different ways. Now that causes a lot of confusion for people because they think that it means one of two things. We either lose our salvation or people who don't get this inheritance weren't really saved to begin with. One view losing salvation is the view associated with Arminianism, the idea that you weren't really saved to begin with because you can't fulfill these condition couldn't fulfill the conditions. That's related to the hyper-perseverance of Lordship salvation.
4. Then the fourth way in which these words are used in relation to a reward based on meeting certain conditions and following certain activities. 

So when we see this in Hebrews, it's primarily used in terms of that future reward for continued service to God. As we see in our passage, that service to God can't begin until first of all we are cleansed and trust Christ as our Savior and are saved. Then it's all based on the fact that Christ is the heir of all things and we are in Him. So we have a certain measure of inheritance. Every believer has certain areas because of our position in Christ, so that when the resurrection occurs, the rapture comes, when you have all believers resurrected and are in heaven, we're all going to have resurrection bodies that have basically the same properties. We're not going to have any sorrow, tears, pain; all those things are going to pass away. We're all going to be happy.  Nobody's going to have a sin nature. There are going to be many other aspects that every believer has in common. But there are going to be other aspects, privileges that we have that are based on our capacity and based on our spiritual growth. These are the two dimensions.

We'll come back next time and go through the Doctrine of Inheritance because this is going to be foundational to what happens, to things that are said coming up into chapter 10. Chapter 10 is going to be a whole lot of fun because there are some tough passages there. Then we'll get to chapter 11, which is really a lot of fun. But since I have taught through Genesis we will not take 2 years to go through Hebrews 11 which you could do in order to get the background on everybody that's mentioned there. 

Hebrews 10 is a tough chapter, but we have to once again be reminded of certain key doctrines that form the background so that when we read it, it's clear and it makes sense. 

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.

Illustrations